Build Me Up, Break Me Down
by the lola
Summary: 'Never has she felt the elation that she feels when she sees him again. It's only been two weeks, but two weeks too many and she hasn't coped at all on her own. She throws her dainty arms around him in embrace, but he soon pulls back, worry etched into his features because he knows… he knows she's slipped again.' - sad, beautiful, and tragic are Narcissa Yaxley.


**Word Count:** 2,402

**Challenge/Competition: **HedwigBlack's Weekly Challenge, The Seven Challenges Competition

**Prompts:** Angst, Heartbreak, Suicide, "I can't bear this anymore!" a rare pairing, same year & same house,

"My dreams are sails that I point towards my true north, stretched thin upon my rib bones, and pray that it gets better. But it won't. At least, I don't believe it will." "My hopes are weapons that I'm still learning how to use right, but they're heavy and I'm awkward, always running out of fight." "I'm all made out of shipwrecks, every twisted beam. Lost and found like you and me, all scattered out on the sea." "If we hold on tight, we'll hold each other together, and not just be some fools rushing to die in our sleep." "We only have what we remember." (these quotes from a poem named Wooden Heart by Listener)

**Warnings:** Implications of self harm, disordered eating, domestic abuse.

**Disclaimer:** I don't claim to own Harry Potter, it's all JKR's.

**Note: **Well I worked really, really hard on this - I've been writing bits and pieces for days, rewriting parts, etc, trying to make it as good as I can, so I hope you guys enjoy! Oh and sorry for making Lucius horrible, I love Lucissa, just needed to make him this way for the purposes of the story. :)

* * *

Sharp – sharp edges, sharp words, sharp features, sharp bones… not a piece of her is soft anymore, nothing.

She's barely a human really, she thinks. In her mind, she's made up of every little mistake, secret, every moral that her family ever showed, told or taught her, made up of every look thrown at her and every word that cuts through her. Not Narcissa Black, bold and beautiful, pretty and funny, smart and plan, she's nothing – nothing at all.

And so she's letting herself fade. There's no point in living, anyway – no one is noticing now, no one is going to notice… maybe if they do, that will be her turning point. Still, she doesn't care, not one bit – she's going to disappear. Every time the opportunity to skip a meal arises, or if no one's going to notice the razor blade go missing – she's not going to tell herself no, it's all yes. _Yesyesyes._

Lucius. She just can't _take _his aristocratic looks, his snarky comments, his air of arrogance… she hates him, she hates the man she's going to spend the rest of her life with. As she slips into parties, whispering utterances of _yes, yes yes yes, _into anyone's ear that is not his, pressing her lips to anyone's that are not his, she cannot bring herself to care. What's another bruise to match all the others? It pushes her closer to the edge, and for that she silently thanks him.

The days slide by, slipping through her fingers like water, nothing changes except one little thing, one person, Yaxley. He notices her.

"Just stop this, Narcissa…" he says in a strong voice one late night in the common room, as she wipes her silent tear away from her face and turns to face him – features all sharp, sharp insults on the tip of her tongue.

"Yaxley. What are you talking about? You don't understand a thing," she hisses, praying that her features don't fall while subconsciously tugging her sleeves down.

"I know that you need someone, and that someone can be me if you just let it," his face is hard, as it always is, but his eyes are soft. As he moves to sit next to her, she flinches just slightly.

"I'm spoken for," she says blankly, looking at the ground.

"A friend, Narcissa. Don't you have friends?" And now he frowns, but he doesn't recoil, he doesn't make a move, he just sits.

And they sit, together in silence, for hours.

It takes time, but it doesn't matter – all Narcissa seems to have is time, the endless abyss in which she is falling deeper and deeper into, driven forward only by her 'most noble, most ancient, house of Black', and the expectations – _'pretty and perfect, pretty and perfect, don't let anyone see your cracks sweetheart,' _that come with being a member of the family. Over that time, that silence turns into words, and the words turn into meaning, the meaning turns into understanding, and they form a bond. It's not like before, now… she _almost_ wants to disappear, but not quite.

"I don't know what you think you're doing with Yaxley – you're a slut but you're not someone else's girlfriend. You're mine," Lucius says, eerily calm but the inflected anger in his tone amazing her, she doesn't know how he holds such power in so few words.

"He's my – my friend, Lucius…" she stutters, hating herself for sounding so bloody _weak_, but her body shakes from both terror and food deprivation _(damn it damn it, Yaxley hasn't been here, damn it, she's slipping without him)._

"I swear to Merlin Narcissa, if you're lying… well, you know what will happen." And his icy blue eyes flicker to the bruises decorating her face underneath her concealment charm, before he turns on his heel, leaving her alone, like always.

Lying doesn't even phase her – why should it? His maniacally glittering eyes scream to Narcissa: _lie to me, lie to me_… affairs and scandal are practically second nature to a Black, it's nothing to her, she's been lying and cheating and keeping secrets her whole life… what's different now?

As her wrists tingle in the biting cold, she finds herself mentally begging Yaxley is back soon (his father died, he's been away a while)… and she realises that he really is her only friend – the only person that cares about her, and the only person that she cares about.

So now, the tragic part of life catches up with them and it becomes them. They are Narcissa and Yaxley, she is reckless and he is her backbone, and in this moment she finds she cannot _live _without him.

Never has she felt the elation that she feels when she sees him again. It's only been two weeks, but two weeks too many and she hasn't coped at all on her own. She throws her dainty arms around him in embrace, but he soon pulls back, worry etched into his features because he knows… he knows she's slipped again.

"Oh my gosh, Cissa, I'm sorry…" The elation they felt at seeing each other melts away all in this brief moment, and she watches as desolation creeps into his eyes.

A tear slides down her face, but before she knows it there's just too many to wipe away. So she cries and she lets herself cry, and then cries more because she's being so damn selfish – his father's just passed, he's grieving but regardless, he holds her and calms her and doesn't even think twice before doing so. "I'm- I'm so… so selfish!" She manages to get out, in between sobs, "_I'm _sorry!"

"It's okay… calm down," he says softly, unlike she's ever heard. Yaxley wipes the tears from underneath her eyes as they come, and tucks her hair behind her ear. And suddenly, the world seems to just stop. For the longest time, they've been trying to keep up and barely managing, but finally, the world has stopped for them. This is their moment, they can finally allow themselves to get caught up in each other, a moment, and dare she think it – their love…

Lips are on lips, their hands roaming each other's bodies, and before she knows it she's up against the wall, giving more and more of herself to him with every thrust. She is not Lucius' anymore – her heart belongs to Yaxley (in her little girls mind, anyway).

She is well aware of the family name and her expectations that are dragging her through her life, the bindings that aren't going to let up just because she's found _love_ – no. Blacks do not marry for love; they marry for bloodlines, status. She knows this and he knows this, which is why even their earth shifting moment together is tinged with sadness, and there's nothing either of them can do but appreciate each other, right here, right now.

"See… If we hold on tight, we'll hold each other together, and not just be some fools rushing to die," he says as she lays in his arms, with a forced smile but happy eyes, because he is feeling both emotions just as she is.

"I know Yaxley, I know," she murmurs, high on love.

But of course, the world has to keep spinning and suddenly they are not even close to keeping up – they are behind, far behind, everything is moving without them and everything just starts to spin out of control, unwinding itself like thread.

"Fuck you, Malfoy, seriously! You're not hard, you're not better than me, and sure you don't deserve Narcissa," Yaxley growls in Lucius' face as the two boys square up to each other and Narcissa can only stand by and watch, paralysed with fear.

"Shut up," Lucius says in that powerful tone.

"Or what?" The other boy cocks his head, one eyebrow raised.

Curses are hurled to start with, but it ends up as punches being thrown and Narcissa hangs her head in shame without thinking twice – it's just ingrained into her, they are not acting like purebloods, instead dirty muggles; she _should_ be ashamed of them.

It's just tragic, really. Finally, she found a reason to live, pulled herself out of the dark void that she'd been stuck in, recovered herself… remembered herself. But typically, the world caught up with her and pulled her back down to reality and brought her the harsh reminder that this is but a fairytale – this is not her life now and it never will be.

_NarcissaLuciusNarcissaLucius NarcissaLuciusNarcissaLucius ._

She says it over and over in her head, it makes her head spin and her stomach flip – she loathes him, and she hates herself for being such a coward, never wanting to disappoint, forever wanting to be the perfect pretty pureblood princess her parents expected her to be (that she was, when first betrothed to Lucius).

There's something imperfectly perfect about Yaxley and herself, because he's arrogant (yes, of course, he's a Slytherin and carries every ugly trait), but he became her friend when no one else would, and he helped her feel again – he alone gave her a reason to live.

With Lucius, it's all imperfect – all sharp insults, sharp slaps, sharp tongues, sharp features…

"I can't bear this anymore, Yaxley!" she says one day, using every little piece of her to finally push the many time abandoned words out.

"What?" he asks, although she knows that he knows – he sees the pain in her eyes, the same as that day they made friends, because of the empty hole inside of her that's becoming larger by the second.

"Everything and nothing at all... Lucius, life – I can't do it and I don't want to but I _have_ to. I know I'm a coward, I run away from life and act like the worlds not spinning so fast that I can't keep up with it – I have to face my destiny, you know what that means so _please _don't make me say it!" she says it in that quiet voice she adopts when around Lucius and she's not sure why – maybe she's subconsciously protecting herself on what happens to her if she upsets Lucius.

"You know I love you…" And it's like she watches his heart break into thousands of little pieces right before her because his whole persona just appears _defeated – _every part of him just loses that little _Yaxley _touch, his confidence and arrogance and every part of his personality just fly away into the air in a matter of seconds.

"But you know… you know that we can never be together, right?" Now it's her turn – she is not a person, so she cannot fall apart, but little parts of her that she's gained from him just flake away into nothingness, and the tiny heart she developed while with him turns immediately to stone.

"I get it but – fuck – I've done so much for you, you can't just leave me now, you can't just give up!" he says desperately, eyes glittering with unshed tears – such a rare display of emotion for the usually perfectly composed young man.

"We're ending school in two weeks; I don't have a _choice-" _

"-run away with me!" he says in a strangled tone, running a hand through his short hair.

"I can't!" she gasps and squeaks at the same time as he's finishing his sentence, not really thinking about just how _terrible _she sounds, "I mean – I can't leave my family…"

"Because your family has done so much for you… they haven't noticed your issues, helped you through them, _loved _you – they're the _reason_ for your problems!" he yells now, forgetting just how frightened it makes her.

She flinches, "I can't disappoint them… you know that Yaxley, you understand don't you? Yaxley?" Tears of desperation roll down her face and she subconsciously recoils in fear from him.

"Thank you," he mutters.

"For what?" Narcissa cocks her head, pretty blue eyes shining with tears.

"Loving me, opening up to me, being yourself, I'll always love you – I will."

She smiles up at him, "Maybe one day, we'll get our happy ever after."

"Just hold onto that hope, Cissa, along with the memories of me." He takes her hand in his, his being warmth surrounding her cold.

"We're going to be okay," she says as confidently as she can, nodding her head resolutely.

"I know. You'll make it through, so will I. We're strong."

"I know. Thank you, too. I love you."

And he pulls her into a final kiss, muttering a final I love you – it's mingled with tears and drowned in sadness, but it's them and it's their final moment and they throw their all into it.

* * *

_**June 1996 - **_

As she spots Yaxley in the Ministry – his lean figure, his thin hair, his slightly lopsided walk, she flinches. Memories hit her at full force and she realizes that she almost forgot to remember him – he was always there in her mind, helping her through the days, but she let go of her hope for a happily ever after. Narcissa Black does not get happy endings, and Narcissa Malfoy does not deserve them.

His gaze burns on her as she turns her head and hides under her hair, she just can't bring herself to do it. When you remove someone from your life for long enough, they just become a memory, feelings dull and the memories blur and you can try and trick yourself into forgetting that you loved them. Seeing him is bad enough, so speaking to him will bring back the tumble of emotions that come with loving him.

And he hasn't regained his personality – his spring, his compassion, his just _Yaxley_ traits, she can tell by the hard look he wears, the stiff stance he's adopted… he's bitter, harsh, cold, biting, because without love every good part in him was taken away. So in this moment more than ever, she hates herself for destroying the person that glued her broken jigsaw back together, and for walking with the man she walks with while he's just across the corridor.

One little part of him she never lost was her silent promise – after he came back, she never slipped again. A razor blade has never touched her wrist and she's never stepped on the scales since.

Narcissa knows like no other – it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.

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**A/N- **How did I do? I really hope you guys liked, and this pairing is so rare I know it won't get many views so pretty pretty please review, I'll love you forever. Wish me luck for this final round, too! :)


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